Alejandra Matus: Journalist.

Today I will write about a person I really admire. She is a journalist. She studied at Catholic University and now she studies at Harvard University on a scholarship from Nieman Fundation.

She has worked at radios, news agencies, newspapers, magazines, and digital media. Alejandra has written three books: Crime with punishment about the murder of Orlando Letelier; The Black Book of Chilean Justice, a book which deals with the decline of the Chilean courts and judicial system in general. This book was censored by the chilean courts and she had to seek political asylum in USA for two years.

The third book is Lasting Injustice about the state of freedom of expression in Chile. She has received several international awards, including Ortega y Gasset Prize, Hellman / Hammett and Vasyl Stus.

Alejandra has given lectures at universities and professional events in Europe, USA and Chile. She has taught at several universities in Chile and has taught workshops for Latin American professionals. Also, Alejandra was director of the magazine Plan B.

I admire Alejandra because she is a good writer, she has written to defend human rights and justice and because she was not afraid of threats or exile.

Music and stuff.

This time I will talk about the music I prefer. When I was a little boy, walking around the mountains of eight region of Bío Bío river, all the music that I listened to was latin american folcklore, mexican ballads and Mapuche ethnic music. Why did I listened to that kind of music? because that was what the people around me listened to. My mom heard chilean groups such as Illapu, Los Jaibas and Sun and Rain. My older Brother, Rodrigo, heard to Violeta Parra, Silvio Rodríguez, Víctor Jara and that kind of artists. But, when my older cousin came to live with us from Argentina, she brougth argentine rock into my life. Fito Páez, Charly García, The Green Dwarfs, Luis Alberto Spinetta,  Sui Generis, Alejandro De Michele de Pastoral, Birds Making Machine and León Gieco.

At this point in my life the influence of others is not as important. Finally I know what kind of music I like. I still like Folk  music, mexican ballads, ethnic music and argentine (and chilean and all the rock!) rock, but also I like tango, electronic tango, hip hop and all the music that gives me pleasure. My favorite song these days es Roxanne, but not the version of The Police, but the one in the movie Moulin Rouge. The movie is a romantic Jukebox musical film directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann.

Valparaiso, my favorite city

This is a photo of me and my girlfriend and it was taken this summer, around february. The firsts days of that month we went on a short vacation to Valparaiso and stayed there for three days. That moment occurred on the second day of our trip. I dont think you can tell but behinds us there was a fire and some really gray and heavy smoke, I dont know why but we still thought it was a cool place to take a romantic photo. 

It was just after lunch and we were very full from all the eating. I ordered some fish and fried potatos and Natalia, my girlfriend ordered fish and a salad, but we still shared what was on our plates. The photo was taken by the camera, we put it on a rock and set the clock for three seconds, the result: that awesome photograf of us. I really like it because I was really happy that day and I got to say it, we look really nice.